view en/ch02-tour-merge.xml @ 828:477d6a3e5023

Many final changes.

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<chapter id="chap:tour-merge">
  <?dbhtml filename="a-tour-of-mercurial-merging-work.html"?>
  <title>A tour of Mercurial: merging work</title>

  <para id="x_338">We've now covered cloning a repository, making changes in a
    repository, and pulling or pushing changes from one repository
    into another.  Our next step is <emphasis>merging</emphasis>
    changes from separate repositories.</para>

  <sect1>
    <title>Merging streams of work</title>

    <para id="x_339">Merging is a fundamental part of working with a distributed
      revision control tool.  Here are a few cases in which the need
      to merge work arises.</para>
    <itemizedlist>
      <listitem>
	<para id="x_33a">Alice and Bob each have a personal copy of a
	  repository for a project they're collaborating on.  Alice
	  fixes a bug in her repository; Bob adds a new feature in
	  his.  They want the shared repository to contain both the
	  bug fix and the new feature.</para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
	<para id="x_33b">Cynthia frequently works on several different
	  tasks for a single project at once, each safely isolated in
	  its own repository. Working this way means that she often
	  needs to merge one piece of her own work with
	  another.</para>
      </listitem>
    </itemizedlist>

    <para id="x_33c">Because we need to merge often, Mercurial makes
      the process easy.  Let's walk through a merge.  We'll begin by
      cloning yet another repository (see how often they spring up?)
      and making a change in it.</para>

    &interaction.tour.merge.clone;

    <para id="x_33d">We should now have two copies of
      <filename>hello.c</filename> with different contents.  The
      histories of the two repositories have also diverged, as
      illustrated in <xref
	linkend="fig:tour-merge:sep-repos"/>.  Here is a copy of our
      file from one repository.</para>

    &interaction.tour.merge.cat1;

    <para id="x_722">And here is our slightly different version from the other
      repository.</para>

    &interaction.tour.merge.cat2;

    <figure id="fig:tour-merge:sep-repos">
      <title>Divergent recent histories of the <filename
	  class="directory">my-hello</filename> and <filename
	  class="directory">my-new-hello</filename>
	repositories</title>
      <mediaobject>
	<imageobject><imagedata fileref="figs/tour-merge-sep-repos.png"/></imageobject>
	<textobject><phrase>XXX add text</phrase></textobject>
      </mediaobject>
    </figure>

    <para id="x_33f">We already know that pulling changes from our <filename
	class="directory">my-hello</filename> repository will have no
      effect on the working directory.</para>

    &interaction.tour.merge.pull;

    <para id="x_340">However, the <command role="hg-cmd">hg pull</command>
      command says something about <quote>heads</quote>.</para>

    <sect2>
      <title>Head changesets</title>

      <para id="x_341">Remember that Mercurial records what the parent
	of each change is.  If a change has a parent, we call it a
	child or descendant of the parent.  A head is a change that
	has no children.  The tip revision is thus a head, because the
	newest revision in a repository doesn't have any children.
	There are times when a repository can contain more than one
	head.</para>

      <figure id="fig:tour-merge:pull">
	<title>Repository contents after pulling from <filename
	    class="directory">my-hello</filename> into <filename
	    class="directory">my-new-hello</filename></title>
	<mediaobject>
	  <imageobject>
	    <imagedata fileref="figs/tour-merge-pull.png"/>
	  </imageobject>
	  <textobject><phrase>XXX add text</phrase></textobject>
	</mediaobject>
      </figure>

      <para id="x_343">In <xref linkend="fig:tour-merge:pull"/>, you can
	see the effect of the pull from <filename
	  class="directory">my-hello</filename> into <filename
	  class="directory">my-new-hello</filename>.  The history that
	was already present in <filename
	  class="directory">my-new-hello</filename> is untouched, but
	a new revision has been added.  By referring to <xref
	  linkend="fig:tour-merge:sep-repos"/>, we can see that the
	<emphasis>changeset ID</emphasis> remains the same in the new
	repository, but the <emphasis>revision number</emphasis> has
	changed.  (This, incidentally, is a fine example of why it's
	not safe to use revision numbers when discussing changesets.)
	We can view the heads in a repository using the <command
	  role="hg-cmd">hg heads</command> command.</para>

      &interaction.tour.merge.heads;
    </sect2>

    <sect2>
      <title>Performing the merge</title>

      <para id="x_344">What happens if we try to use the normal <command
	  role="hg-cmd">hg update</command> command to update to the
	new tip?</para>

      &interaction.tour.merge.update;

      <para id="x_345">Mercurial is telling us that the <command
	  role="hg-cmd">hg update</command> command won't do a merge;
	it won't update the working directory when it thinks we might
	want to do a merge, unless we force it to do so.
	(Incidentally, forcing the update with <command>hg update
	  -C</command> would revert any uncommitted changes in the
	working directory.)</para>

      <para id="x_723">To start a merge between the two heads, we use the
	<command role="hg-cmd">hg merge</command> command.</para>

      &interaction.tour.merge.merge;

      <para id="x_347">We resolve the contents of <filename>hello.c</filename>

This updates the working directory so that it
	contains changes from <emphasis>both</emphasis> heads, which
	is reflected in both the output of <command role="hg-cmd">hg
	  parents</command> and the contents of
	<filename>hello.c</filename>.</para>

      &interaction.tour.merge.parents;
    </sect2>

    <sect2>
      <title>Committing the results of the merge</title>

      <para id="x_348">Whenever we've done a merge, <command role="hg-cmd">hg
	  parents</command> will display two parents until we <command
	  role="hg-cmd">hg commit</command> the results of the
	  merge.</para>

	&interaction.tour.merge.commit;

      <para id="x_349">We now have a new tip revision; notice that it has
	<emphasis>both</emphasis> of our former heads as its parents.
	These are the same revisions that were previously displayed by
	<command role="hg-cmd">hg parents</command>.</para>

      &interaction.tour.merge.tip;

      <para id="x_34a">In <xref
	  linkend="fig:tour-merge:merge"/>, you can see a
	representation of what happens to the working directory during
	the merge, and how this affects the repository when the commit
	happens.  During the merge, the working directory has two
	parent changesets, and these become the parents of the new
	changeset.</para>

      <figure id="fig:tour-merge:merge">
	<title>Working directory and repository during merge, and
	  following commit</title>
	<mediaobject>
	  <imageobject>
	    <imagedata fileref="figs/tour-merge-merge.png"/>
	  </imageobject>
	  <textobject><phrase>XXX add text</phrase></textobject>
	</mediaobject>
      </figure>

      <para id="x_69c">We sometimes talk about a merge having
	<emphasis>sides</emphasis>: the left side is the first parent
	in the output of <command role="hg-cmd">hg parents</command>,
	and the right side is the second.  If the working directory
	was at e.g. revision 5 before we began a merge, that revision
	will become the left side of the merge.</para>
    </sect2>
  </sect1>

  <sect1>
    <title>Merging conflicting changes</title>

    <para id="x_34b">Most merges are simple affairs, but sometimes you'll find
      yourself merging changes where each side modifies the same portions
      of the same files.  Unless both modifications are identical,
      this results in a <emphasis>conflict</emphasis>, where you have
      to decide how to reconcile the different changes into something
      coherent.</para>

    <figure id="fig:tour-merge:conflict">
      <title>Conflicting changes to a document</title>
      <mediaobject>
	<imageobject><imagedata fileref="figs/tour-merge-conflict.png"/></imageobject>
	<textobject><phrase>XXX add text</phrase></textobject>
      </mediaobject>
    </figure>

    <para id="x_34d"><xref linkend="fig:tour-merge:conflict"/> illustrates
      an instance of two conflicting changes to a document.  We
      started with a single version of the file; then we made some
      changes; while someone else made different changes to the same
      text.  Our task in resolving the conflicting changes is to
      decide what the file should look like.</para>

    <para id="x_34e">Mercurial doesn't have a built-in facility for handling
      conflicts. Instead, it runs an external program, usually one
      that displays some kind of graphical conflict resolution
      interface.  By default, Mercurial tries to find one of several
      different merging tools that are likely to be installed on your
      system.  It first tries a few fully automatic merging tools; if
      these don't succeed (because the resolution process requires
      human guidance) or aren't present, it tries a few
      different graphical merging tools.</para>

    <para id="x_34f">It's also possible to get Mercurial to run a
      specific program or script, by setting the
      <envar>HGMERGE</envar> environment variable to the name of your
      preferred program.</para>

    <sect2>
      <title>Using a graphical merge tool</title>

      <para id="x_350">My preferred graphical merge tool is
	<command>kdiff3</command>, which I'll use to describe the
	features that are common to graphical file merging tools.  You
	can see a screenshot of <command>kdiff3</command> in action in
	<xref linkend="fig:tour-merge:kdiff3"/>.  The kind of
	merge it is performing is called a <emphasis>three-way
	  merge</emphasis>, because there are three different versions
	of the file of interest to us.  The tool thus splits the upper
	portion of the window into three panes:</para>
      <itemizedlist>
	<listitem><para id="x_351">At the left is the <emphasis>base</emphasis>
	    version of the file, i.e. the most recent version from
	    which the two versions we're trying to merge are
	    descended.</para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_352">In the middle is <quote>our</quote> version of
	    the file, with the contents that we modified.</para>
	</listitem>
	<listitem><para id="x_353">On the right is <quote>their</quote> version
	    of the file, the one that from the changeset that we're
	    trying to merge with.</para>
	</listitem></itemizedlist>
      <para id="x_354">In the pane below these is the current
	<emphasis>result</emphasis> of the merge. Our task is to
	replace all of the red text, which indicates unresolved
	conflicts, with some sensible merger of the
	<quote>ours</quote> and <quote>theirs</quote> versions of the
	file.</para>

      <para id="x_355">All four of these panes are <emphasis>locked
	  together</emphasis>; if we scroll vertically or horizontally
	in any of them, the others are updated to display the
	corresponding sections of their respective files.</para>

      <figure id="fig:tour-merge:kdiff3">
	<title>Using <command>kdiff3</command> to merge versions of a
	  file</title>
	<mediaobject>
	  <imageobject>
	    <imagedata width="100%" fileref="figs/kdiff3.png"/></imageobject>
	  <textobject>
	    <phrase>XXX add text</phrase>
	  </textobject>
	</mediaobject>
      </figure>

      <para id="x_357">For each conflicting portion of the file, we can choose to
	resolve the conflict using some combination of text from the
	base version, ours, or theirs.  We can also manually edit the
	merged file at any time, in case we need to make further
	modifications.</para>

      <para id="x_358">There are <emphasis>many</emphasis> file merging tools
	available, too many to cover here.  They vary in which
	platforms they are available for, and in their particular
	strengths and weaknesses.  Most are tuned for merging files
	containing plain text, while a few are aimed at specialised
	file formats (generally XML).</para>
    </sect2>

    <sect2>
      <title>A worked example</title>

      <para id="x_359">In this example, we will reproduce the file modification
	history of <xref linkend="fig:tour-merge:conflict"/>
	above.  Let's begin by creating a repository with a base
	version of our document.</para>

      &interaction.tour-merge-conflict.wife;

      <para id="x_35a">We'll clone the repository and make a change to the
	file.</para>

      &interaction.tour-merge-conflict.cousin;

      <para id="x_35b">And another clone, to simulate someone else making a
	change to the file. (This hints at the idea that it's not all
	that unusual to merge with yourself when you isolate tasks in
	separate repositories, and indeed to find and resolve
	conflicts while doing so.)</para>

      &interaction.tour-merge-conflict.son;

      <para id="x_35c">Having created two
	different versions of the file, we'll set up an environment
	suitable for running our merge.</para>

      &interaction.tour-merge-conflict.pull;

      <para id="x_35d">In this example, I'll set
	<envar>HGMERGE</envar> to tell Mercurial to use the
	non-interactive <command>merge</command> command.  This is
	bundled with many Unix-like systems. (If you're following this
	example on your computer, don't bother setting
	<envar>HGMERGE</envar>.  You'll get dropped into a GUI file
	merge tool instead, which is much preferable.)</para>

      &interaction.tour-merge-conflict.merge;

      <para id="x_35f">Because <command>merge</command> can't resolve the
	conflicting changes, it leaves <emphasis>merge
	  markers</emphasis> inside the file that has conflicts,
	indicating which lines have conflicts, and whether they came
	from our version of the file or theirs.</para>

      <para id="x_360">Mercurial can tell from the way <command>merge</command>
	exits that it wasn't able to merge successfully, so it tells
	us what commands we'll need to run if we want to redo the
	merging operation.  This could be useful if, for example, we
	were running a graphical merge tool and quit because we were
	confused or realised we had made a mistake.</para>

      <para id="x_361">If automatic or manual merges fail, there's nothing to
	prevent us from <quote>fixing up</quote> the affected files
	ourselves, and committing the results of our merge:</para>

      &interaction.tour-merge-conflict.commit;

      <note>
	<title>Where is the <command>hg resolve</command> command?</title>

	<para id="x_724">The <command>hg resolve</command> command was introduced
	  in Mercurial 1.1, which was released in December 2008. If
	  you are using an older version of Mercurial (run <command>hg
	    version</command> to see), this command will not be
	  present.  If your version of Mercurial is older than 1.1,
	  you should strongly consider upgrading to a newer version
	  before trying to tackle complicated merges.</para>
      </note>
    </sect2>
  </sect1>

  <sect1 id="sec:tour-merge:fetch">
    <title>Simplifying the pull-merge-commit sequence</title>

    <para id="x_362">The process of merging changes as outlined above is
      straightforward, but requires running three commands in
      sequence.</para>
    <programlisting>hg pull -u
hg merge
hg commit -m 'Merged remote changes'</programlisting>
    <para id="x_363">In the case of the final commit, you also need to enter a
      commit message, which is almost always going to be a piece of
      uninteresting <quote>boilerplate</quote> text.</para>

    <para id="x_364">It would be nice to reduce the number of steps needed, if
      this were possible.  Indeed, Mercurial is distributed with an
      extension called <literal role="hg-ext">fetch</literal> that
      does just this.</para>

    <para id="x_365">Mercurial provides a flexible extension mechanism that lets
      people extend its functionality, while keeping the core of
      Mercurial small and easy to deal with.  Some extensions add new
      commands that you can use from the command line, while others
      work <quote>behind the scenes,</quote> for example adding
      capabilities to Mercurial's built-in server mode.</para>

    <para id="x_366">The <literal role="hg-ext">fetch</literal>
      extension adds a new command called, not surprisingly, <command
	role="hg-cmd">hg fetch</command>.  This extension acts as a
      combination of <command role="hg-cmd">hg pull -u</command>,
      <command role="hg-cmd">hg merge</command> and <command
	role="hg-cmd">hg commit</command>.  It begins by pulling
      changes from another repository into the current repository.  If
      it finds that the changes added a new head to the repository, it
      updates to the new head, begins a merge, then (if the merge
      succeeded) commits the result of the merge with an
      automatically-generated commit message.  If no new heads were
      added, it updates the working directory to the new tip
      changeset.</para>

    <para id="x_367">Enabling the <literal
	role="hg-ext">fetch</literal> extension is easy.  Edit the
      <filename role="special">.hgrc</filename> file in your home
      directory, and either go to the <literal
	role="rc-extensions">extensions</literal> section or create an
      <literal role="rc-extensions">extensions</literal> section. Then
      add a line that simply reads
      <quote><literal>fetch=</literal></quote>.</para>

    <programlisting>[extensions]
fetch =</programlisting>

    <para id="x_368">(Normally, the right-hand side of the
      <quote><literal>=</literal></quote> would indicate where to find
      the extension, but since the <literal
	role="hg-ext">fetch</literal> extension is in the standard
      distribution, Mercurial knows where to search for it.)</para>
  </sect1>

  <sect1>
    <title>Renaming, copying, and merging</title>

    <para>During the life of a project, we will often want to change
      the layout of its files and directories. This can be as simple
      as renaming a single file, or as complex as restructuring the
      entire hierarchy of files within the project.</para>

    <para>Mercurial supports these kinds of complex changes fluently,
      provided we tell it what we're doing.  If we want to rename a
      file, we should use the <command>hg rename</command><footnote>
	<para>If you're a Unix user, you'll be glad to know that the
	  <command>hg rename</command> command can be abbreviated as
	  <command>hg mv</command>.</para>
      </footnote> command to rename it, so that Mercurial can do the
      right thing later when we merge.</para>

    <para>We will cover the use of these commands in more detail in
      <xref linkend="chap:daily.copy"/>.</para>
  </sect1>
</chapter>

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